WIJFR: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest

Lisbeth Salander, the brilliant computer hacker who was shot in the head, is alive, though still the prime suspect in three murders in Stockholm. While she convalesces under armed guard, journalist Mikael Blomkvist works to unravel the decades-old coverup surrounding the man who shot Salander: her father, Alexander Zalachenko, a Soviet intelligence defector and longtime secret asset to Säpo, Sweden’s security police.

“The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest” by Stieg Larsson is the final book of the Millenium trilogy and I finally finished reading it this past weekend during my trip up to Ohio.

“Hornets’ Nest” picks up immediately where “The Girl Who Played with Fire” ended: Mikael Blomkvist has found Salander miraculously alive after being shot in the head and buried at a remote farm where she tried to kill her father and half-brother. Lisbeth and Zalachenko end up in the hospital under police guard while the authorities try to piece together the events that occurred in the second book. Meanwhile, The Section, the secret division of the security police is mobilizing to protect its secrets and its past history. Once again Blomkvist and Salander are at the center of a political, legal, and far-reaching scandal that threatens both of their lives and the lives of their associates.

In “Fire” we learned about Lisbeth’s backstory and history with Zalachenko and The Section. “Hornets’ Nest” unravels the inner workings of The Section, its history inside Säpo, the players involved, and explains how the conspiracy started and continued into present day. It gets a bit complex and at times I found it hard to keep everyone and everything straight, but Larsson does a good job of intriguing the reader and keeping the plot moving forward at a good pace. Even the big courtroom scenes at the end, which are mostly expository, are riveting to read. It’s not until the final pages of the epilogue when everything finally falls into place and is neatly wrapped up.

Having cancelled Netflix recently, I won’t be able to watch the third installment of the Swedish movies, but the US version of the trilogy starts in December.

Dayton: Day 3 (homeward bound)

We got to “sleep in” a bit this morning, compared to the last two days. By 8:15am, we were checked out of our hotel, picking up breakfast at Starbucks, and back on the road to the Cincinnati airport (in Kentucky).

The travel gods were looking out for us again (plus it was early Sunday morning) so we encountered no traffic or issues on our way. By 10:30am we were checked in, through security, and at our gate. One two-hour, uneventful flight later and we were back in sunny (warm!) Florida.

By 2pm we were back home and ready to relax. My daughter and I had a great time on our trip but tomorrow it’s back to work and school.

Dayton: Day 2 (Go Flyers!)

The day started early again as we got up at 7am, grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel, and the headed out into the chilly, windy morning over to the University of Dayton Arena for rehearsal with the alumni band. Practice ended a few hours later after we rehearsed the pre-game and halftime shows with the student band on the football field Welcome Stadium.

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Down to the wire!

What a spectacular final night of regular season baseball! The Rays started September 9 games behind Boston. Tonight started with Tampa Bay and Boston tied for the AL wildcard, facing a potential single playoff game Thursday night at Tropicana Field if they ended up still tied after tonight’s games.

But that game won’t be necessary. The Rays, down 7-0 in the 8th inning, tied the game with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th and then beat the Yankees 8-7 in the bottom of the 12th inning, just after midnight. Minutes before, after a lengthy rain delay in Baltimore, the Orioles came back to beat Boston, eliminating the Red Sox from the post-season. The Rays are the 2011 AL wildcard winners!

I loves me some October baseball. Go Rays, and bring on the Rangers!

The Indians’ season, however, is over. They finished second in the AL Central, but just shy of .500 and 15 games behind the Tigers. Oh well .. 190 days until Spring Training 2012!

Leaving the red envelope for the red box

Like millions of other Netflix subscribers last week, I received CEO Reed Hastings’ strange “apology” for the recent price increase, along with the announcement that the business is splitting into two companies: Netflix for streaming, and Qwikster for the DVDs-by-mail service. The end result is two web sites, two accounts, two queues, two payments … and two headaches for customers.

Wha-huh?

I was already considering cancelling my Netflix service (after the original price increase was announced a few months ago) when my gift subscription expired, but this latest change sealed the deal: I’m dropping Netflix. I enjoyed my gift subscription and really loved using the service. Over the past year I’ve gotten to watch five seasons of Dexter, the first three seasons of Mad Men, and a bunch of other movies and TV shows on DVD and over streaming.

Time will tell if I’ll miss the streaming service but to “replace” the DVD rentals, I’ll be giving Redbox a try. It won’t be as convenient as DVDs direct to my home but in the long run it will be cheaper than keeping Netflix/Qwikster and there will be less pressure to watch more stuff just because I’m paying a monthly fee for it (I already have plenty to watch on my TiVos, especially with the new fall TV season starting up again).

Thus ends my second stint as a Netflix customer (I first subscribed to the service from 1999 until 2002). I’ll watch the new companies’ progress with interest to see if this is the end of the DVDs-by-mail model, and if there’s any more subscriber fallout/backlash from these changes. And who knows … maybe at some point I’ll come back to Netflix a third time.

Windows 8 Developer Preview released

This week at the Build Conference, Microsoft released a freely downloadable developer preview of Windows 8 (you can download the ISOs here). If you’re an avid reader of this blog (and which of the five of you aren’t? ;-)) you know I like to jump on new technology early so of course I downloaded the 64-bit version and installed it in a virtual machine via VirtualBox.

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Remembering 9/11 – 10 years later

I was still a traveling consultant in September of 2001 and my assignment at the time was a PeopleSoft upgrade in the Chicago suburbs. We were in our daily morning meeting when we first heard the news about the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. Like everywhere else that morning, the atmosphere was one of shock and disbelief. At first everyone thought it was a freak accident … until the second plane hit the south tower.

I can’t recall if we we were sent home early, or if we finished the rest of the workday. I do remember going over to a colleague’s apartment (I was staying in a hotel) where we had dinner and sat watching the news coverage for hours into the night.

From my office window I could see the downtown Chicago skyline and would usually watch all the planes on approach into the two airports. Few the next few days, while all flight traffic in the US was grounded, the skies were eerily empty. Since I was didn’t even want to try and fly home to Florida that weekend, I drove to my parents’ place in Cleveland just to be with family instead of by myself in Chicago. When I did finally fly for the first time after the attacks (and for weeks afterwards), O’Hare was a crowded mess of long lines and weary passengers and security screeners. It’s hard to remember there was a time when we didn’t have to take off our shoes or walk through full body scanners.

But this 10th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on American soil is not just about “where were you?” but about the over 3,000 people who lost their lives on 9/11 and the men and women who continue to work to keep America safe at home and abroad.

Never forget.